Monday, September 22, 2008

With the Dodgers' magic number stuck at five going into the final week of baseball, the timing is opportune to bring up a (fictional) story of Joe Torre and Josh Rawitch, as Torre had a special shortened lineup to fill.

Torre had a unique situation in which he had to pick five Dodgers, past or present, to participate in a Dodgers community service event that involved them going to an all-girls high school. It wasn't a big commitment, just stand in front of the assembly in the school's multi-purpose room up on stage, and show a couple of game-typical maneuvers (like throwing, catching, and batting), and be done with the event in under two hours.

Torre toiled over this one for a while. Which Dodgers should he choose? These were the sort of lineup decisions that drove him (and Dodger fans) insane. Luckily, while procrastinating a bit, Torre found the the answer was right before him, as the puzzle strangely mentioned four Dodgers from past and present. Once he realized what these four Dodgers had in common, it was easy for him to decide the fifth and final Dodger needed to complete the group.

Unfortunately for Dodger VP of Public Relations Rawitch, who was trying to settle the details for this community service event, Torre wasn't able to tell him the five Dodgers he wanted to select. Instead, Torre left Rawitch the following crossword grid, with the following note scribbled in the margin:

Josh: This crossword grid reveals four of the five Dodgers that I have selected for my quintet. If you can complete this grid step by step, you'll figure out the theme the four Dodgers have in common, which should lead you to determine who the fifth Dodger must be. The fifth Dodger will fit the common theme, albeit a little differently from the other four, and as an extra hint, he's an outfielder. And, as one more hint to the theme that binds all four players and signals the fifth player, there are five blue squares which will anagram to an appropriate acronym.

Puzzle construction notes: As a warning, the crossword itself is almost as convoluted as my lead-in story (this is the first crossword I've ever constructed, and man! is it difficult to do!). There are a handful of reasonably obscure words which I've tried to indicate in the clues. Sorry about that. I can say that the payoff of theme is pretty good, so please hang in there if you're a crossword type of person and you're insulted by this admittedly weak attempt.

Puzzle rules: Comment freely in the thread, but if you have the solution, please don't give away the answer to everyone in the comments section. Instead, do the following:

Post a comment simply saying you have emailed your solution attempt. Due to firewall issues, I may not be able to reply to your original email promptly, so please do be patient and check back on the comment thread for the latest news; I will confirm correct answers there.

Bonus! In addition to the prizes we're awarding to the Puzzle Championship Series (see the sidebar for top-five standings), we're also giving away a participation prize for this individual puzzle. Like our previous puzzles, all solution attempts submitted via email before the deadline--correct or not--will be entered into a pool (one entry per person regardless of number of submissions). From this pool, one name will be randomly selected in a transparent lottery. As long as the person drawn is willing to send us his/her mailing address, they will receive a wonderful Dodger-related prize item. As for this bonus prize...let's just say, you'll flip over it!

Deadline is midnight PT, and the solution will be posted at 12:01 AM tomorrow. Thanks, and good luck!

HINT #1 (9.15a): The blue letters do not anagram to a word; rather, they anagram to an acronym. This is key to determining the link between the five players, if looking at the four alone in the grid isn't enough.

HINT #2 (11.40a): The names of the four Dodgers in the grid matter, but it is not relevant to examine the first letters of their last names. (It is also not relevant to examine the last letters of their first names; you're getting confused with something else.)

I also got the crossword and the 4 Dodgers, but can't figure the anagram. I can take a wild guess at the 5th Dodger, but frankly would not dignify that as a "solution". There are several other alternatives along the same non-theme, and that's not good enough.

Wow, sorry I was out of pocket there. In order of response, I've got correct answers from quadsevens, MSTI, fanerman, _____, Jose, and gil gamesh. The blank is because I don't know the screenname of the guy who works at "the Y."

i emailed a doubt...i've been alternating my duties with thesaurus, cambridge advanced learner's dictionary, wikipedia, among other internet research...i gotta thank you made me learn a lot of stuff today.